[_ph_]

I am torn, whenever I hear the rumors about the ARM Macs. On the one side, I am terribly excited from a technology perspective. I grew up with homecomputers in the 80ies, and in the 90ies, all Unix-workstations had several different, non-x86 architectures. So any disruption of the x86-monoculture is interesting. Also, looking at the performance of the iPhone and iPad, I think Apple has the potential to create some great hardware. It would also give them more flexibility to roll out new features.

On the other side, such a transition always is painfull. A lot of software needs to be rebuilt, and even more legacy software gets killed, as it is not ported to the new platform. Though Catalina already did a lot of that, and that might not be a coincidence, if you think about it. Catalina might be intentionally restrictive to ease the transition to another architecture.

Also, a lot of Mac users are running VMs on their machines. Running Windows and Linux VMs on your Mac was one big benefit of the switch to Intel. I myself use a Linux VM for my professional work on a MB Pro. And that VM needs to be able to run x86 software. So it remains to be seen, how Apple deals with the MB Pro (and of course the Mac Pro).

[EduardoBautista]

ARM Macs are one of the things I don't want to be an early adopter of. I am going to stay with Intel as long as possible but I am excited about making the switch to ARM once it's shown to not be a hassle.

[bitwize]

This is Apple we're talking about -- and Apple is what other OEMs want to be when they grow up. Not only will the Apple-designed ARM CPUs perform at or above the level of a similarly-specced Intel machine, but the ISA transition will be seamless, with a nearly-invisible Intel binary compatibility layer that does on-the-fly JITing. Otherwise, they simply won't release it at all.

[pianoben]

I think you are over-estimating the quality of their software engineering. Maybe ten years ago I would have believed this, but with each macOS release the litany of unforced errors just continues to grow. The advantage Apple derives from owning the whole stack is a bit oversold, at least when it comes to their non-iOS products.

Of course this is anecdotal, but my macbook (made solely from Apple-supplied parts) seems to crash 3x as often as my cobbled-together-from-spare-parts Windows 10 desktop.

> Otherwise, they simply won't release it at all.

Do you think post-Jobs Apple retains that discipline? I'm not sure.

[saidajigumi]

> Maybe ten years ago I would have believed this, but with each macOS release the litany of unforced errors just continues to grow.

Apple, of all companies, is not a monolith. There are parts of the company who've been just killing it from a software perspective (Swift, SwiftUI, XCode preview for SwiftUI, etc.) Where they've had severe issues has effectively been quality management across the broader OS.

Also, I'll be very interested to watch what happens over the next couple of major release cycles. I think Apple got a major wake-up call with the shitstorm that was the iOS 13 / Catalina release cycle. I'm hoping that they'll be putting in place an outright culture shift to fix that long-term, vs. a one-off "Snow Leopard" tech debt paydown release.

[ksec]

>(Swift, SwiftUI, XCode preview for SwiftUI, etc.)

Time will tell, but right now I think Swift isn't the languages that I once hoped for. And objective-C, despite all of its problem, is still doing well.

[rmsaksida]

> Not only will the Apple-designed ARM CPUs perform at or above the level of a similarly-specced Intel machine, but the ISA transition will be seamless, with a nearly-invisible Intel binary compatibility layer that does on-the-fly JITing

Apple didn't bother with 32-bit compatibility for Catalina which would have been much easier to implement. You're being way too optimistic. Apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility.

[danieljacksonno]

I think that might have been to prepare us for ARM. They did the same stuff with the headphone jack : Removed it one iteration sooner than needed, so the new design wouldn't catch flack for missing it.

If the ARM macs can run Intel 64 bit software, but not 32 bit, then removing it in Catalina makes perfect sense

[p_l]

Considering that they can't manage to not break foundational libraries in code paths that should require no changes (at least since the introduction of Aqua, with the actual code being used since 1988!) and considering how they broke even 64bit software in Catalina in subtle ways that are still impossible to figure out by developers...

Nah. It won't be seamless at all. It will be like touchbar macs - you buy it because last 3 generations were stuck in place with little improvement and you are forced artificialy to upgrade.

[philwelch]

I think this is a little optimistic. Apple doesn’t have the cachet it did ten years ago and their attention to detail on the Mac platform has slipped a hell of a lot. They would probably have an ISA emulation to support x86 apps, but that will likely be deprecated in a couple of years.

[damnyou]

Yeah, other OEMs want to grow up to have butterfly keyboards, don't they?

[snazz]

Other OEMs want to grow up to be able to make mistakes and still retain a loyal following.

[ianai]

They could make an x86 daughterboard for the Mac Pro. Plenty of space for that and it’s been done decades ago. Or a third party could.

I wonder whether they’ve got any special killer apps in mind for the desktop and MacBook ARM machines. They could theoretically customize them greatly since they’re designing the architecture. Also wonder whether they view keeping the unix developer pipeline.

[philwelch]

iOS development and, potentially, better support for Catalyst are the obvious pluses I haven’t seen mentioned yet.

[ianai]

Or graphics algorithms tailored to many cpu cores instead of just gpus. Or have the Mac platform interoperate with their mobiles better, again.

[philwelch]

Graphics algorithms for what? Mac is still such a small market share that third party developers won’t take advantage of any weird architectural advantages. Sony tried and failed to pull this off with the PS3’s Cell processor, which was ironically PowerPC-based.

[ianai]

FCP, Adobe, etc. Apple has enough market power, cash, and know how to pull some combos and killer features off.

[jbverschoor]

Battery life

[Flow]

For me, the interesting development right now is the drastic increase of CPU cores. ARM or Intel doesn't matter much except for gaming in Windows.

But of course, Apple does often surprise us all, maybe this could be something cool after all.

[LOLOLOLO1]

I really doubt running ARM64 Linux in VM will be a problem. Most software from repositories should be OK as well.

[_ph_]

At work, I need an x86 Linux VM. Privately, I would be very happy to run an ARM Linux in a VM, if there will be VMs offered for ARM Macs.

[birdyrooster]

I wonder if we could see more mixed architecture like T2. What would it look like if you had x86 and ARM on board?

[scarface74]

Apple won’t do it. There are so many architectural issues with it and you don’t get the power savings of ARM.

People asked the same question during both previous transitions.

[saagarjha]

Note that Apple is currently doing this.

[scarface74]

Saying that Apple will do this because they are using a coprocessor is like saying Apple was going to run Mac software on 65C02 because the IIFx included two 65C02 processors.

But during the PPC transition, you could buy a PPC daughter card for 68040 Macs to run PPC software but you couldn’t use them simultaneously.

[dzhiurgis]

Apples biggest debt was developers who rely on vm’s and brew. They’ve already booted them about while producing laptops without a reliable keyboard for 4 years.

ARM macbooks will be for youtube influencers. Sure they’ll be able to edit 8K (and when uploaded to youtube they can’t even view it themselves). Devs need AMD.

[rado]

You’ve tried the Arm MacBook?

[zamadatix]

Windows and Linux have already run on ARM for quite a while, both are able to run x86 software while doing so (at a penalty). The main holdback has been lack of desktop class ARM CPUs.

[thomascgalvin]

I'm still mad about Apple killing 32bit support; I don't have a few extra grand a year to drop on Photoshop. If they drop x86 support, too, I might finally jump ship.

[jonas21]

I'm confused. Why would you need a few extra grand a year for Photoshop?

[objclxt]

Photoshop and Lightroom are bundled together for $10 a month.